AP False Report on EPA Head Pruitt Just Latest Example of Media Bias

“I can confirm that a meeting between Andrew Liveris and Scott Pruitt never happened,” Rachelle Schikorra, a spokesperson for Dow told the Washington Free Beacon.

Schikorra’s statement demonstrates that the mainstream media has once again put out a story that is simply not true. The Associated Press reported last week that EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt (shown) had met privately with Liveris, the CEO of Dow Chemical, prior to denying a petition to ban Dow’s pesticide chlorpyrifos.

The Pesticide Action Network North America and Natural Resources Defense Council — both well known environmentalist groups — had brought the petition to the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA denied the petition, explaining that more study is needed to determine if chlorpyrifos should be banned.

The AP, however, reported that Liveris met privately with Pruitt for 30 minutes, 20 days before the EPA rejected the petition, implying that the alleged meeting was what led Pruitt to deny the petition.

The problem is, however, that no such meeting took place. Speaking for the EPA, Liz Bowman stated, “The Associated Press prides themselves on accuracy, but now they are deliberately ignoring facts to mislead Americans in an attempt to undermine the Trump administration’s environmental goals.”

Apparently, a meeting had been scheduled, but it was cancelled due to “schedule conflicts.”

Dow's Schikorra asserted, “The two have never had a meeting and have never discussed any Dow products.”

The inaccurate reporting of the AP is just the latest example of how the liberal news media is so determined to make the Trump administration look bad that they either fail to use good journalistic methods in reporting, or they just make it up — what President Donald Trump has taken to calling “fake news.” Of course, it could be that they have been doing this for years, and no one has called them on it until now. After all, would the AP and other liberal media outlets cover stories on their own false reporting?

By now, it is well known that CNN alleged that Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital, held meetings with Russian investment fund managers. Since Scaramucci is an ally of President Trump, and the media are obsessed with proving that Trump and his underlings “colluded” with the Russians to swing the election away from Democrat Hillary Clinton, this of course would have been “big news.” CNN even reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Treasury Department were investigating the matter. However, the Senate Intelligence Committee was not investigating the matter. And the Treasury Department had already investigated the allegation and found it to be “without merit.”

In other words, CNN had reported on something that appeared damaging to the Trump administration, but it was simply false. The ensuing revelation that CNN had reported something that was essentially made up led to the resignation of three employees of that network.

The failure of the media to pursue scandals in the prior Democratic administration of Barack Obama — such as the IRS targeting of conservative groups applying for tax exempt status, the Fast and Furious gunwalking outrage, and the meeting between Attorney General Loretta Lynch and former President Bill Clinton while Hillary Clinton was being investigated by the Justice Department led by Lynch — raises a multitude of questions, particularly when compared to their willingness to keep up a steady drumbeat of negative stories on the Trump administration.

When did the liberal media ever report events that cast a bad light on the Obama administration — events that turned out to be false? If it were just a situation of incompetent journalism at work here, then we should have similar examples of journalistic incompetency from the Obama era casting a negative light on his administration.

But we do not.

The conclusion one must make, then, is that “mainstream” media are not objective reporters working to deliver the news in a fair manner, but are really just players on the same team with the liberals in public office.

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) signaled as much when Scott Pruitt, then attorney general of Oklahoma, was nominated. He promised a “fight” against Pruitt, asserting, “I think he has a record and it will be scrutinized, and there will be opposition there as a result.” Many other liberal Democrats in Congress said much the same.

But that is to be expected. After all, the Democrats are on a different “team” from the Republicans. But what we have here is a situation where the media are figuratively sitting on the Democrat bench, ready to enter the game whenever called upon to attack conservatives in the government — such as EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt.

Photo of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt: AP Images

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